Pinup girl: Jayne Mansfieldt

Jayne Mansfield

Jayne was a beautiful and voluptous blonde haired girl of huge bosoms. She was outstanding as an actress in some films that mainly wanted to show her nice and sexy body.

Since she was a young girl she was very interested in cinema so she began to study drama at Dallas University and she took part in some beauty contests. But she was only 16 when she married her first husband Paul Mansfield whose surname would preserve after their divorce. Early she had a daughter with him and she had to leave her studies for a spell.

In 1954 she moved to Los Angeles where she took up again her drama studies in the UCLA and among other jobs she worked as a model for some magazines as Playboy.

Finally she made her debut in cinema with small roles in films as "Female Jungle" (1954) directed by Bruno Vesota, "Pete Kelly's Blues" (1955) by Jack Webb, "Underwater!" (1955) by John Sturges, or "Hell on Frisco Bay" (1955) by Frank Tuttle.

But she played her first important role in "The Burglar" (1956) directed by Paul Wendkos.

Lately she acted in "The Girl Can't Help It" (1956) by Frank Tashlin which also brought her a certain success.

Her great performances in the comedy films "Kiss Them For Me" (1957) directed by Stanley Donen and also played by Cary Grant, and "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" (1957) by Frank Tashlin, would provide her a great reputation as an actress. In the same year she played a dramatic role in "The Wayward Bus" (1957) by John Steinbeck trying to run away from comical roles. Thanks to this performance she got a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer-Female.

Next year she divorced Paul Mansfield and married the muscular Mr. Universe, the Hungarian bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay with whom she had three children more.

In 1959 she came back to screens with "The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw" (1959) directed by Raoul Walsh, a not very memorable film as it would happen with "Too Hot To Handle" (1960) by Terence Young one year later.

In her last actings, principally of comical subject, the directors purposes only tried to exploit even more her large and curved body showing her if not semi, completely naked. That's the reason because all her last films were quite dreadful and mediocre. From this stage it would be necessary to emphasize the film "Las Vegas Hillbillys" (1966) by Arthur C. Pierce because of her performance by the side of Mamie Van Doren, another sexual icon of the moment.

In 1963 she divorced Hargitay and one year later she married the cinema director Matt Cimber with whom she had another child more, but she divorced him two years later.

In 1967 she died when she was 34 in a spectacular traffic accident in which it was said she was beheaded. During her eventful life she knew Anton LaVey the satanic church's leader who predicted that Jayne's lover, Sam Brody, and anybody who would travel with him at that very moment would die in a car accident. Fatefully LaVey's curse came true giving rise to one of Hollywood's black legends.